


Peculiar

by Sarah T (SarahT), SarahT



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/Sarah%20T, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/SarahT
Summary: Morning would come, and staff, and tourists.  He couldn’t be found here.  Still, he didn’t move.





	Peculiar

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Spike for betaing. Sorry about the bit that didn't work out...

Mycroft had instructed the extremely flustered porter not to turn on any of the lights, so the chapel was illuminated by only the dimmest, most diffused moonlight.The pennants, the tombs, the great carved wooden stalls were vague and heavy shapes.He lay on his back on the cold flagstone and tried to reconstruct the reaches of the ceiling, now hidden in the gloom sixty feet up, from memory.He knew the design well: in a circle around each pendant, branches fanned, ramifying and complicating into crosses and diamonds and arches as they expanded away and interlocked, the gaps in the middle filled in with several smaller, echoing medallions.The pattern established, working it out across the entire span was simply a matter of concentration.But it took a long time; his mental draft kept wavering and blurring.He kept his eyes closed until he was sure he had it, then played the pencil-beam of his flashlight up, picking the vault out detail by detail to confirm his vision.

Fifteen kings and queens lay around him (one interloper had later rightfully been ejected).He’d always found their company soothing before, even amidst the crowds of tourists that usually thronged this place.Now he wondered if he ought to apologize. _I chose protecting my family over protecting the kingdom.Again._

He turned his head for a moment, bringing into view a tomb whose irony he had always smiled at.Mary had once locked Elizabeth in the Tower. Their cousin James, trying to make them friends after death, had buried them together under an inscription neither would have accepted for the other.Unlikely anyone would ever be foolish enough to try to do that for the Holmes siblings.

If he’d died on Sherrinford, they would have laid him to rest here, too, though in the main body of the Abbey, unannounced and unmarked.A promise from his queen, when he’d refused the Garter.Walsingham was buried at St. Paul’s.He’d do one better.

Back to the ceiling.The cold of the floor had pervaded his entire body.The air against his skin was chilly, too.The ghosts of wax and incense made him cough, his breath scratchy in his throat.But he didn’t move to get up.He didn’t want to go home, either to Magpie Alley or to Kew.There would be piles of reports and messages, carefully-modulated phone calls from colleagues, and, sooner or later, Sherlock, wanting more answers, making more demands.There would be, too, the necessity of pretending that he was simply resuming his normal routine, as if the secret powerful undertow of his existence had not abruptly been dissipated, leaving the surface flow choppy and unregulated. 

Fortunately, when his helicopter had touched down in London, Andrea had been mysteriously absent, and it had been easy enough to evade Inspector Lestrade, apparently sent there in an appallingly tactless gesture by Sherlock.The memory of the complete bafflement on Lestrade’s face made him smile.But that had left him with no particular destination.Or he’d thought it had, until his unconsidered footsteps had carried him onto the bridge and brought the great sweep of the Abbey into view.It had been faintly satisfying to confirm that there was still nowhere he couldn’t go, even in the middle of the night.Despite the cold, he might just fall asleep here, his consciousness beginning to flicker in between traceries.His exhaustion was at least as numbing as the temperature.But he couldn’t prolong this moment indefinitely.Morning would come, and staff, and tourists.He couldn’t be found here.Still, he didn’t move.

Not until he heard the firm clack of heels echoing at a distance, then growing closer.He knew those footsteps.For a minute, he didn’t care how she found him.Then he did, scrambling to settle himself into one of the stalls of the Knights of the Bath.Sir Nigel Essenhigh would have a conniption, if he ever found out.That would at least be entertaining. 

He leaned back as best he could in the uncomfortable seat and resumed his study of the ceiling, waiting.Lady Smallwood’s own flashlight beam preceded her as she climbed the steps to the chapel with care.She emerged into the dusky light in a heavy tweed jacket and flat-heeled boots.Her hair was up, but there was no lipstick on her mouth.Pulled out of bed, then.

“Mycroft,” she said, as if they were simply crossing paths at Whitehall.

“Elizabeth.”His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.

She glanced around the chapel.“So this is what unlimited clearance actually entails.I’d always wondered.”

“Disappointed?”

“As dramatic settings go, it’s adequate, but, as accommodations for the evening, it strikes me as lacking in amenities.”

He shrugged minimally, continuing to trace a fan with light.“It’s been fit for purpose.”

She took a seat in an adjacent stall but said nothing, waiting for him to finish his reconstruction.There.The arches clicked together into place, the ceiling restored.The world resolved itself a little more around him.He rubbed his eyes and turned the light off.

“I trust you’re up to date on the situation?” she said finally.

“Yes.”There had been fragmentary reports on the flight back from Sherrinford, enough for him to pull together.Sherlock was alive, Euros in custody.There would be ramifications, but nothing more needed to be done that evening. 

“You must be rather tired.”

“I’m fine.”

She raised an eyebrow.“And wanting to freshen up.”

He looked down at his rumpled suit.What an unfortunate objective correlative to his condition.“As soon as I get home.”

He expected her next sentence to press him to go there, and was grimly casting about in his mind for reasons to refuse, but his deductions had failed him.

“As for that.”She hesitated.“Considering that Baker Street was actually bombed, another house was threatened, and Kew was compromised by someone under Euros Holmes’s influence, a consensus has formed—rather a strong one—that you shouldn’t go to either your city flat or Kew until security teams have had a chance to clear them.”

It was a valid point, a presentable excuse for actions he hadn’t wanted to take anyway, but he abruptly found he didn’t care to have others deciding where he could go.“The Diogenes, then.”

“The Diogenes has been evacuated on the same grounds.”

He was so tired he couldn’t even summon anger.“Then where _is_ the consensus that I should sleep?”

“Assuming you’re conceding that you can’t sleep here,” she said, “as I trust you are, there are two choices.A safehouse is ready—“

He winced, imagining it.Stained linoleum, musty-smelling towels, cigarette-scarred end tables.

“—or you can come to mine.As you know, the security is adequate.”

A Kensington townhouse.He’d been twice, when Lord Smallwood was still alive.There’d be the necessities of civilization, at least.

“I couldn’t possibly impose.”

“Mycroft.”She smiled tightly, revealing even white teeth.“I assure you, your being blown up would be a far greater inconvenience to me.”

He simply couldn’t formulate another objection.“Then I accept your kind offer.”

They picked their way slowly down the chapel stairs and over the uneven floors.Lady Smallwood paused before the door.“For the record, when I issued my invitation earlier, this is hardly what I had in mind.”

The thought startled laughter out of him, a series of chokes and splutters.He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, almost swaying.“I should hope not.”

For a second, he thought he might have offended her, but she only said, mildly, “Nonetheless, I do have some very good Scotch.Another advantage over the safehouse.”

“It would be wasted on me tonight,” he said.“Nonetheless, it’s good to know that…there are resources.”

“Yes.Though I suppose they must pale in comparison with fifteenth-century fan-vaulting.”

“Don’t underestimate fan-vaulting.” 

It was, after all, preferable to cocaine, or multiple murders, or the chill Thames nearby. 

“I shall try not to,” she said, and smiled, more gently, verging on ruefully.“But I hope a comfortable guest room and a hot shower have something to offer as well.”

If he searched his memory, he could find a time when such things had made a difference.He would have to take it on faith, he thought, and followed her outside.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Henry VII's "Lady Chapel" can be seen here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKzhNQISZo)


End file.
